Early detection of bark beetle infestation in Norway spruce forests of Central Europe using Sentinel-2

Bárta, Vojtěch; Lukeš, Petr; Homolová, Lucie

doi:10.1016/j.jag.2021.102335

Cited by 48 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…The IPCC recognizes that biomass from trees affected by natural disturbances can contribute to the overall technical potential of forest biomass [35]. On the contrary, studies [40,41] assume that in Central Europe, the supply of forest biomass for energy purposes will be endangered due to the bark beetle calamity and the consequent large-scale deforestation. The presented research substantiates this statement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…have caused a significant decline in coniferous, mostly commercial forests, including spruce stands on non-forest land in Central Europe, specifically in Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, and especially in the Czech Republic [40,41]. As a result of the bark beetle calamity, the volume of the forest biomass supply for energy purposes in the Czech Republic is expected to decrease [41]. Predicting the availability of forest dendromass regarding the further course the bark beetle calamity might take is currently extremely difficult [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Potential of Forest Biomass Resources for Renewable Energy Production in the Czech Republic

2021

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In the European Green Deal and the Climate Act, the European Union has committed itself to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. This goal is to be achieved by joint efforts of all economic sectors, including forestry and its downstream sectors. One way to attain this goal is the effective and sustainable use of forest biomass for energy production. This article aims to quantify the potential of forest biomass resources for the production of electrical and thermal energy based on official departmental statistics, the current legal framework for forestry and the environment, and research results in the context of an extreme change in the raw material base due to the ongoing calamity caused by the spread of insect pests in the Czech Republic. This extreme can classify as a significant risk to the security of the energy supply from renewable sources in the event of oversizing new installed energy production from renewable sources. Based on data and calculations, an overall annual volume of dendromass available for energy production in the Czech Republic for the period extending to 2036 was quantified at the value of 13.473 million tons per year. Consequently, it is clear that the overall dendromass resources for energy production in the Czech Republic are not sufficient to achieve the EU’s ambitious objective.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential of Forest Biomass Resources for Renewable Energy Production in the Czech Republic

2021

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“…While the current focus is on satellite-based near-realtime alerting of changes in the tropical moist forests of Asia, Africa and South America [30,31], recent research also considers temperate forests. Of particular interest are the changes in response to storm events [32] or insect pests [18,19,[33][34][35]; the European Forest Remote sensing has proven to be valuable in detecting forest changes, particularly stand-replacing changes [24][25][26][27][28][29]. While the current focus is on satellite-based near-real-time alerting of changes in the tropical moist forests of Asia, Africa and South America [30,31], recent research also considers temperate forests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the current focus is on satellite-based near-real-time alerting of changes in the tropical moist forests of Asia, Africa and South America [30,31], recent research also considers temperate forests. Of particular interest are the changes in response to storm events [32] or insect pests [18,19,[33][34][35]; the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) has already been operating a near-real-time alerting system since 2000 [36]. Generally, canopy cover loss alerts indicate likely changes in near-real-time, often with some measure of confidence [30,31], whereas annual change maps, such as the global forest change product of the University of Maryland [37], show high confidence with regard to the detected changes actually being real changes on the ground.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, in the past, scientific literature on forest disturbance in Germany had a focus on the early detection of insect pests, such as bark beetles [44,45], or windthrow detection [32,46,47], both with a variety of sensors [7], and did not consider logging. Even though early detection of bark beetle infestation [18,33] and the assessment of forest damage and other threats to forest health [48][49][50] became increasingly important in Central Europe over the past few years, to our knowledge, there is currently no comprehensive, spatially explicit assessment of standreplacing clear-cuts and canopy cover loss in Germany. Earth-observation methods are not yet implemented in regular reporting at the national level [51], even though many agencies at federal or state levels run their own remote-sensing labs and use Earth-observation technologies on local to regional scales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A First Assessment of Canopy Cover Loss in Germany’s Forests after the 2018–2020 Drought Years

et al. 2022

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Central Europe was hit by several unusually strong periods of drought and heat between 2018 and 2020. These droughts affected forest ecosystems. Cascading effects with bark beetle infestations in spruce stands were fatal to vast forest areas in Germany. We present the first assessment of canopy cover loss in Germany for the period of January 2018–April 2021. Our approach makes use of dense Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 time-series data. We computed the disturbance index (DI) from the tasseled cap components brightness, greenness, and wetness. Using quantiles, we generated monthly DI composites and calculated anomalies in a reference period (2017). From the resulting map, we calculated the canopy cover loss statistics for administrative entities. Our results show a canopy cover loss of 501,000 ha for Germany, with large regional differences. The losses were largest in central Germany and reached up to two-thirds of coniferous forest loss in some districts. Our map has high spatial (10 m) and temporal (monthly) resolution and can be updated at any time.

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Patterns, drivers and detectability of infestation symptoms following attacks by the European spruce bark beetle

et al. 2022

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Recent outbreaks of the European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) in Norway spruce (Picea abies) forests in Central Europe highlight the importance of timely detection and sanitation of infested trees for pest management efficacy. This study provides novel quantitative evidence on the manifestation of infestation symptoms and their visual detectability, to guide accelerated, optimized terrestrial bark beetle monitoring, as well as establishing benchmarks for potential alternative (e.g. sensor-based) monitoring approaches. We employed bi-weekly, individual tree-level assessments on 85 hectares of spruce-dominated unmanaged forest over a 2-year period in south-western Germany (detecting a total of 1,176 infested trees). By applying decision tree-type models, we quantified the predictive power of observed symptoms and their correlation with environmental factors and time. Terrestrial detection accuracy and timeliness were high, suggestive of being sufficient to suppress I. typographus outbreak propagation by subsequent sanitation felling. Among the six studied symptoms, boring dust occurred most frequently (in 82% of correctly detected infestations) and is most suitable for timely detection. Total symptom abundance was best explained by two site parameters (slope, Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration-Index) and I. typographus population density, while it was widely independent of tree parameters and time. Though individual symptoms varied over time and among trees, patterns were clearly identified. For instance, infestations in spring were most critical to be timely detected, while increasing crown discoloration and defoliation facilitated detection in late summer and autumn. Findings further imply that hibernation trees would optimally be detected already in late summer with sanitation felling applied before November.

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Early detection of bark beetle infestation in Norway spruce forests of Central Europe using Sentinel-2

Cited by 48 publications

References 49 publications

Potential of Forest Biomass Resources for Renewable Energy Production in the Czech Republic

Potential of Forest Biomass Resources for Renewable Energy Production in the Czech Republic

A First Assessment of Canopy Cover Loss in Germany’s Forests after the 2018–2020 Drought Years

Patterns, drivers and detectability of infestation symptoms following attacks by the European spruce bark beetle

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